I have 66 slaves working for me. Or at least that’s what Slavery Footprint estimates based on my lifestyle and the size of my family.
For a quick snapshot, you answer 11 pages of questions, including your age, the number of children you have, whether you rent or own a home, what’s in your medicine cabinet, what you eat, the clothing you own, how much jewelry you own and what electronics you have. If you have time, you can fine tune your results by reporting specific number of items. Like how many computers, leather shoes or stuffed animals you have.
For me, the main contributors were my electronics — not a big surprise there, as slavery has a large footprint in mining of raw materials — and my children’s stuffed animals. Now I have a better idea of my impact on human trafficking, and I learned some interesting facts about forced labor while filling out the survey. For instance, did you know that “bonded labor is used in Southeast Asia’s shrimping industry, which supplies more shrimp to the U.S. than any other country?”
The website — which was created by Call + Response, a non-profit dedicated to ending slavery, in collaboration with the U.S. State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons — estimates the number of slaves by taking a look at more than 450 products, and breaking them down from the sourcing of raw materials through the manufacturing. And the data is taken from legitimate sources such as the Department of Labor’s List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor 2010, International Labor Organization’s Committee of Experts Reports and Transparency International‘s Corruption Index 2010. Check the site’s Methodology page for a complete explanation and list of sources.
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